Pixie and the Green Book Mystery

Title: Pixie and the Green Book Mystery  Author: Coraline Grace  Pages: 103 Genre: Beginner Fantasy

~Review Request by Author~

     Pixie is a unique little 2nd grader that likes to read and wear apples. It's a bad day at school for poor Pixie. She races home so she can go to the library with her Mom (her favorite place). While she is there she sees a book that she hasn't seen before, this book isn't like any others. She soon meets Alice from Wonderland with that time crazed white rabbit and Cindi which is short for Cinderella. They quickly tell her that there is a  book guardian and he is trying to get them stuck in this new green book so their stories are erased forever! Cindi and Alice decide to trust their fate to little Pixie, good  thing she likes to read...but can she get them back to their books fast enough without getting herself caught by this mysterious book guardian?

I read this book with my twin 8 year old girls and they fully enjoyed it. They could relate to little Pixie and they loved the adventure she went on they can't wait for the next book in the series. I enjoyed the book and having a book that I can read to them and watch the excitement on their face was awesome as a Mom. It was lively and cute and I myself can not wait for the next book in the series to continue this bonding time with the kids and see what happens to Pixie next. So from this family Coraline is getting 6 thumbs up!!

The Diary of a Young Girl

Title: The Diary of a Young Girl  Author: Anne Frank   Pages: 268 Genre: Autobiography 

anne Frank is a typical 13 year old. she gets a diary for one of her birthday presents and is very detailed about the things that happen around her.
the detail anne puts into her diary made me feel like I was a friend and I was there with her. the drama at the annex and the tension of everyone cooped up. by the time the book ends anne is 15 and she has brilliant ideas and thoughts and knows more about herself than most adults do in this day and age. I would consider myself fortunate to be her friend.

Ruthless

Title: Ruthless  Author:  Carolyn Lee Adams  Pages: 248  Genre: suspense/thriller

Ruth Carver is a self driven teenager who takes the weight of the world on her shoulders. With this weight she doesn't let anyone close. One day she finds herself in the bed of a truck and not sure how, with a turn of events she finds out she has been kidnapped and needs to find a way out of this mess. As she fights obstacles trying to get back to safety she realizes that she has been taking her loved ones for granted.. now only if she could get home to tell them...

It starts off with a self involved teenager and it was hard for me to get into but as she starts fighting the obstacles and her character changes I enjoyed it more and more. By the half way point I hated putting it down.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Title: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  Author: J.K. Rowling  Pages: 435  Genre: Fantasy

Harry is getting ready for his third year of Hogwarts. However there is news that a mass murderer is loose from prison. As he gets closer to actually able to go to school he is told that this murderer is after him! There are a lot of twists and turns in this novel that keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens to Harry and his friends. 

This is my favorite Harry Potter book! I felt like it was more relate-able then those that dealt with Voldemort. This is a series that is fun to read with kids or just by yourself. There is so much more detail in the books that they need to leave out of the movies due to time probably and the "artist rights" and all. I can not recommend this series enough. I can even get my non-reading boyfriend to read them and enjoy them. I encourage everyone to try and read this series. There is so much you miss out on by just watching the movies. (I am in no way badmouthing the movies I think they are great too!)

Goosebumps: Trapped in Bat Wing Hall

Title: Goosebumps Trapped in Bat Wing Hall  Author: R.L. Stine  Pages: 137 Genre: Suspense/Thriller/Choose Your Own Adventure

It is done as you are the main character and you get to choose which path you take and how it ends. There are many different scenarios that can be played out. You get invited by a boy to go to "Bat Wing Hall" for horror story sharing. However it isn't story time its game time. How will you pick the ending?

I have always enjoyed the "choose your own adventure" books, I have however found it is harder and harder to find them. This is a book I will read over and over to see what different things can happen. The choice is yours :)

Twilight

Title: Twilight Author: Stephenie Meyer  Pages: 498 Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Bella had to move to the small cloudy town of Forks, Washington. Here she thought she would spend a couple miserable years with her Father before doing her own thing to let her Mom be with her new husband and travel. She was not expecting to meet Edward and his family. Edward is not your normal hot guy at school, he and his family have a huge secret and are very good at keeping it. However, when Bella starts interacting with him events start to unfold around the two of them. She finds out Edward's and his family's secret and still can't stay away from him despite the warnings she has been given. She has a run in with a vampire that wants to hunt her. Edward who has fallen for her and she for him now needs to save his very accident prone lover from this fearful vampire. 

This is my second read through and I did enjoy it and loved being able to contrast it to the movie. There are some differences but not a whole lot. The idea of having a boyfriend who would go to the ends of the earth to keep you safe is a great ideal, however the possessive love that they have shows a lot of insecurities about them both. As an adult I now have a hard time deciding if I like the love story of this book. It's nice and a wonderful safety net to know that someone would do anything for you but on the other hand I strongly believe you need to know who you are on your own before you get into a serious relationship where they consume who you used to be and change you into something else entirely. 

You Are a Badass

Title: You Are A Badass  Author: Jen Sincero  Pages: 244  Genre: Motivation/self-help

This book is a way to motivate you and get you moving on making a life that you want and that you are proud of. Jen uses things that has happened in her life and she has experienced to give witness that good things happen to people that work for it and have faith that it will happen, have the thoughts that it will happen for them and that they are worth it. A lot of the time I think we get complacent in life and we need to read something like this to get us back into gear to fight for what we want.

Let's get this out of the way now, its to the point that if you have read one self-help book you have read them all right? I feel the same way. The difference with this book is with Jen's writing you feel like you are sitting on a couch talking to a friend telling her that life sucks and you want that change, you are dying for that change. She is there not to tell you that she agrees life sucks but to tell you to get off your butt and do something about it. There is swearing in this book so that is why I stated there is adult content. There is a part of this book that I didn't agree with that stood out. There is a chapter where she is stating to get rid of the toxic people in your life that feed on your energy and do nothing for themselves or you. Now I can agree you need to get rid of friends' like this but she made it sound like you need to "ghost" them. Where you just stop talking to them with no explanation and make them wonder why they aren't good enough to talk to anymore. I do not agree with this and believe that if you want to get rid of someone you need to tell them why you don't want to be around them anymore. They can't change and challenge themselves to be better if they don't know why everyone keeps abandoning them.